Center
Stage with Pat Launer on KSDS JAZZ88
THEATRE REVIEWS:
“Love Song” – Cygnet Theatre
“The
Trojan Women” – ion theatre
AIRDATE:
JANUARY 30, 2009
The grimmest of ancient
tragedies meets a quirky modern comedy. Strange bedfellows,
indeed. But these are schizophrenic times. So if you wanna
get down one night and get high the next, here’s your dramatic opportunity.
“The Trojan Women” was
written by Euripides in 415 B.C. And every time this darkest of anti-war dramas
is shown, alas, it has contemporary relevance. First produced during the
Peloponnesian War, the play is a bleak and penetrating depiction of the
barbaric behavior of the playwright’s own countrymen, the Greeks, toward the
women and children of the city of
In this vivid new translation by Dr. Marianne
McDonald, the centerpiece is Hecuba, Queen of Troy, who suffers unspeakable
horrors. Her city has been sacked, her husband and children killed, her young
grandson is flung from a parapet, and she and her and remaining daughter (and daughter-in-law)
are about to be given away as slaves. The monstrous acts are just heaped one
upon the other, in a relentless stream of cruelty and violence. It’s a story
that’s repeated every day in the headlines; women are victimized around the
world, in appalling and unfathomable ways. Our hearts are torn apart by the
torment of these war casualties, but even at an intermissionless 90 minutes,
it’s hard to endure the unremitting agony and sorrow. A soundscape
of wailing, moaning and keening underscores the ion theatre production. There
isn’t much action or tonal variety, though the performers are filled with the
requisite angst and anguish. These women accept their fates stoically. Not much
catharsis here, but there is the faint hope that suffering purifies the soul.
It’s amour
that purges hearts and souls in “Love Song,” an offbeat black comedy recently
written by John Kolvenbach, rife with raw, rancorous
dialogue. A workaholic couple is awash in biting repartee. They clash
especially over the wife’s brother, Beane, a misfit
who can’t survive in ordinary society. His sister constantly makes excuses for
him, though her husband thinks, as the audience does, that his intermittent
moments of insight aren’t enough to keep him from a diagnosis of clinical
depression, autism, or worse. He lives in his own world, in a tiny, empty
apartment furnished with nothing more than a chair, a spoon and a cup.
Sometimes, the walls literally close in on him, in a highly imaginative scenic
design. And then, something really crazy happens. Beane
falls in love, and everything changes -- for him, his sister, his
brother-in-law, their relationship and their world-views. There’s a bit of
fantasy in this flaky, lusty comedy, which Cygnet Theatre pulls off with
aplomb, thanks to a crackerjack cast.
If you’re suffering from political-economic moodswings, so is
“The Trojan Women” runs through the weekend, at ion theatre’s Lab
space near SDSU.
“Love Song” continues through February 22, at Cygnet Theatre’s
Rolando location, also near SDSU.
©2009 PAT LAUNER